Top Law Schools

When people say you have to be in the top X% to transfer...
Does that mean the top X% of your CLASS or of your ENTIRE school?

Thanks

Lawschool1L wrote:When people say you have to be in the top X% to transfer...
Does that mean the top X% of your CLASS or of your ENTIRE school?

Thanks

You aren't ranked against your entire school. You are only ranked against your class year (i.e. class of 2013 students, if you are a 1L). Though I imagine some schools rank people based on where they stand in their individual sections.

Thats what I thought as well...
However, at my school there is a "deans list" and a "1st year honors" list

So Deans list includes the entire school... 1st year obviously only includes 1Ls...

So if I was looking to transfer, I should only worry about being in the top 10-20% of the 1st year honors list? Or should I worry about the rest of the school?

P.S. My school doesn't rank =(

Lawschool1L wrote:Thats what I thought as well...
However, at my school there is a "deans list" and a "1st year honors" list

So Deans list includes the entire school... 1st year obviously only includes 1Ls...

So if I was looking to transfer, I should only worry about being in the top 10-20% of the 1st year honors list? Or should I worry about the rest of the school?

Dean's list would be given to all students who meet a certain % requirement as compared to their class year. So theoretically, a student with a 3.7 might be top 10% for 2L's, but a 3.7 might be 11% for 1L's, in which case only the 2L student gets Dean's List (assuming it takes top 10% to get it). Get what I'm saying? Each class year has its own ranking. You are only competing against your own class.

I think my school might do it a little differently...

We have the Deans list which has A-B GPA.

Then we also have 1st year honors which is another GPA C-D

If your GPA is between A&B then you made the Deans list, top 20% of the school.

If you are a 1st year, and between C&D then you are top 20% of your class.

However, if you are between A&B as well as C&D then you are both top 20% of class as well as the school?

This is how I interprted it at least

The Deans list is harder to make than the 1st year honors... Since the 1st year honors includes everyone in my class, the Deans list must include 2Ls and 3Ls because the GPA cut offs are different

Does any of this make sense?

Lawschool1L wrote:I think my school might do it a little differently...

We have the Deans list which has A-B GPA.

Then we also have 1st year honors which is another GPA C-D

If your GPA is between A&B then you made the Deans list, top 20% of the school.

If you are a 1st year, and between C&D then you are top 20% of your class.

However, if you are between A&B as well as C&D then you are both top 20% of class as well as the school?

This is how I interprted it at least

The Deans list is harder to make than the 1st year honors... Since the 1st year honors includes everyone in my class, the Deans list must include 2Ls and 3Ls because the GPA cut offs are different

Does any of this make sense?

I'll admit that its a bit confusing, but the bottom line of it is this: Just do as best as you can and get your GPA as high as possible. Thats all you can control.

We have something like that (I wonder if you go here too... apparently there are a lot of us).
If you got 1L High Honors, you are probably somewhere in the top 5% of the class, if you got 1L Honors you are somewhere in the top 20 or 25% of the class. Those are the two cut-offs to be concerned about in terms of transferring.

The other cut-offs (Dean's List and Dean's Scholar) include 2L's and 3L's and the GPA's are higher, but not really what you need to worry as much about. If you are trying to transfer, definitely put all of the honors your received on your resume and on your applications.

I go to Rutgers lol. You?

And yeah, I figured I should just worry about the 1st year honors... Just wanted to make sure

Thanks

Lawschool1L wrote:I go to Rutgers lol. You?

And yeah, I figured I should just worry about the 1st year honors... Just wanted to make sure

Thanks

Just remember not to write the % on your resume, because technically we don't rank. But you can put all of the designations you receive on your resume (including if you made the cut-offs for Dean's List and/or Dean's Scholar).